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Category Archives: Fun times

We had a really fun and relaxing Fourth of July weekend. I got some yard work done, completed a few easy projects in the house but the rest of the weekend was spent hanging out and watching movies.

Oh, and good food…

Friday morning I mixed up a pretty good sized batch of gazpacho soup, then Friday afternoon I made a big bowl of my mom’s famous potato salad. It was great having those two cold sides all ready to add to our main dishes (rotisserie chicken and steak) and hot sides (brown sugar and hickory baked beans and garlic grilled veggies).

We watched several Kaiju movies Friday and Saturday during the marathon on the El Rey Network.

During our 4th of July dinner we watched a James Bond movie, Thunderball. I picked this one mostly because we had just watched a wonderfully awful movie on Mystery Science Theater 3000 that kind of referred to this one a bit.

The following is from TV Tropes.org**

Originally titled OK Connery and later released in the United States (1967) as Operation Kid Brother, Operation Double 007 was an attempt to cash in on the popularity of the James Bond movie series.

It stars Neil Connery, the actual “Kid Brother” of Sir Sean.

In addition to co-starring Bond series regulars Bernard ‘’M’’ Lee and Lois ‘’Monepenny’’ Maxwell, the cast also includes veteran 007 actors Daniela Bianchi (Tatiana Romanova from From Russia with Love), Adolfo Celi (Largo from Thunderball) and Anthony Dawson (Prof. Dent from Dr. No).

The score is by Ennio Morricone. Yes, that Ennio Morricone.

The film was distributed by United Artists even at the same time they were handling the legitimate James Bond film rights.

It was a fun and relaxing weekend. Looking forward to the rest of the summer and more good times.

It’s summer and as I’ve mentioned before it gets pretty hot in Arizona. We actually had a Heat Advisory Warning that started last Thursday and expires today. In an attempt to avoid the stifling heat I have been working on different projects, some sorting, sewing and some other miscellaneous craft projects. While I worked on the projects I wanted to have something I could watch. I was looking for something good but not too riveting.

I was flipping through Netflix and after some deliberation picked a show I watched sporadically during it’s first run. Murder, She Wrote.

I am so glad that I did. I am totally hooked on this show. I mean, it’s Angela Lansbury, she is amazing and so very charming. The writing is really good and the show holds up really well. There aren’t any cell phones and computers have been featured or mentioned maybe three times, at least so far, I’m about halfway through the third season.

I think my favorite part of watching the old episodes is seeing so many great guest stars. A lot of the guest stars were stars of their own shows many years before like, Chuck Connors from The Rifleman, Forrest Tucker from F Troop, Noah Beery from The Rockford Files, John Astin from The Addams Family, and nearly the entire cast of WKRP in Cincinnati (except Loni Anderson and Tim Reid). Not to mention recurring characters like those played by Tom Bosley, Jerry Orbach, William Windom, Julie Adams and Ron Masak.

I’ve now gotten the entire family hooked on watching. We just watched a cross over between Magnum P.I. and Murder, She Wrote (MSW). The first part was the Magnum P.I. episode “Novel Connection” and the second part on the Murder, She Wrote episode “Magnum on Ice”. It was great seeing the crossover and we’ve already talked about watching Magnum P.I. once we’re done with MSW.

I’m adding this last image because it made my daughter laugh, well, me too.

My daughter’s bestest bud from Hawaii was in town visiting family, and they invited us along on an overnight trip to Flagstaff.

Walnut Canyon

We hiked one of the trails at the Walnut Canyon National Monument. The Island Trail is a loop that takes you right past and even throughsome cliff dwelling rooms/ The loop is only a mile long but is a bit strenuous due to an altitude of 7,000 feet and the 185 foot vertical descent into the canyon, and the return ascent. It’s a great hike and even though I nearly died on the way back up the stairs I had a great time.

Downtown Flagstaff

We had fun shopping at Heritage Square.

Saying hi to the carriage horse.

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We saw this cute Airstream trailer at The Big Heap Vintage, Antique and Handmade Design Festival. There was a lot of groovy stuff at the festival like antique furniture, pretty ironwork, vintage trunks and suitcases. There was some beautiful handmade work too, there was a booth with Steampunk fashion, including some niftyhats and jackets. Another booth had some really intricate wire and resin butterfly jewelry.

For the past two weeks I’ve been working fairly non-stop on a redecorating project. Today though, I needed a break and needed to laugh. My choice was to watch Simon Pegg’s Cornetto Trilogy of movies. We started with Shaun of the Dead, continued with Hot Fuzz and finished the it off with The World’s End. I’ve seen Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz several times before and totally loved them. I was not disappointed with The World’s End, it was more of the same funny action and adventure.

It was a well needed break and I am really thankful. I am ready to get back to my project and everything else that needs to be done this week. Here’s hoping everyone has a successful week!

I am a bit excited about our upcoming trip to Disneyland and to Mickey’s Halloween party. I’ve decided to get a jump on the costumes, especially since last year was a ten day marathon of cutting, pinning and cutting. I am hoping the preparation this year will be a bit more relaxed.

This weekend I spent some time looking at some different costume ideas. We’d decided on the pirate theme earlier this year so at least I am that far along. Of course, you’d be surprised at the different options for pirate costumes, especially given the many costumes featured in the Pirates of the Caribbean movies. We have the added factor of getting on and off of rides at Disneyland to think about when choosing a costume. I liked different elements of these costumes, which I found at Spirit Halloween. I like the asymmetrical skirt on the first and last ones and the vest and hat options on the other costumes. Overall, though my costume will need to be a little less sexy, I want to go more for cute and sassy. It is for Disneyland after all.

My plan is to make a skirt similar to the first picture but not as short in the front and not as long in the back. This weekend I started looking through my patterns and fabric. I remembered that I bought a remnant of some pretty brocade last Christmas. I think it will make a really pretty vest. I originally planned to make a loose fitting corset but even loose fitting boning might be a little painful for the rides.

So, with that I decided on a color scheme; white pirate shirt, the teal/blue brocade for the vest, black skirt and white underskirt. I will probably make some black boot covers, more on that in a few weeks.

I started on the white underskirt, cutting out a modified circle skirt. Then I started to cut the skirt into the shape that I wanted. I’ll be adding about six inches of lace to the bottom edge and another tier above that.

I have a lot of lace that my grandmother gave me, it had already been cut into pieces about 10″ x 14″. I sewed several pieces together along the t14″ side and then cut the whole chain in half to make a 7″ wide strip. Then I had my two tiers of lace for the skirt.

Here’s the mostly finished underskirt…

Now I just have to work on the overskirt and attach it all to a waistband.

It might still be summertime here in sunny Arizona but we are already looking ahead to the fall.

Last night I was going through the mail that had accumulated while we were on vacation, we got a flyer from Disney advertising the different events coming up in the fall. When we were at Disneyland last October we saw a lot of people participating in the Halloween festivities and it looked like a lot of fun.

Sully saw the flyer and asked about what dates things were happening. I did more research online at the Disneyland website. We discussed dates, checked our calendars and Sully requested the time off work. So guess where we are going in October?

Mickey’s Halloween Party!

We were planning on dressing as pirates this year so it works out perfectly. It’s totally silly but I am really excited!